


Nightmares

by Axelflow



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Late at Night, Night Terrors, Supportive Relationship, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:27:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26094865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Axelflow/pseuds/Axelflow
Summary: These kids have gone through so much and it's bound to have left some scars. Here's my attempt at exploring that.
Relationships: Callum & Rayla (The Dragon Prince), Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 56





	Nightmares

Rayla’s scream froze Callum’s heart. He was studying in his room when its piercing shrill broke through the night’s air. He bolted up, his chair falling to the side and the candlelight he was working under flickering with his speed. He ran as fast his legs could carry him, feet pounding against the cold, hard stone of the Spire. 

Rayla’s door was closed, and the door knob refused to budge. She had locked it, a habit drilled into her from a life where being guarded kept you safe. Thankfully, Callum knew the secret to unlocking any door.

He crouched down to the keyhole and wrote the rune for Aspiro before gently blowing into it. He could hear the tumblers of the lock rattle with his spell. Now came the hard part. He began to whistle, rolling it across his lips, trying to find the correct pitch. When he finally found it, he jerked his head to the side. The lock mirrored him, and it opened with a satisfying click. 

Callum pushed the door open to see Rayla sitting up in her bed, head in her hands. He felt his heart rip in two when he saw the stream of tears running down her forearms. 

“Hey,” he called out softly. “It’s me. What’s wrong?”

“I- I- can’t get hi- his- his voice out of my head.” 

Callum knelt beside her bed and placed a hand on her shaking shoulder. “Whose voice?” 

“V- V- Viren’s,” Rayla finally managed to get out between stuttering sobs.

Callum’s hand dropped and he pulled her into a silent hug, hoping that it would be enough to shield her from further distress. Rayla shook in his embrace, her body bouncing with a grim rhythm. 

“Ev- ev- everytime I close my eyes, I see him. Hear him.”

Callum wanted to respond, to say anything to make her feel better, but his words were failing him. The tragedy of her situation smothered his head with its weight. What could he possibly say? Rayla’s breathing seemed to solidify from his embrace, so he decided to focus on that.

“He said he’d add me to his collection.” 

A fresh wave of sobs followed and Callum almost followed suit. Viren was a monster, plain and simple. When Ezran told Callum what Viren did to him, he was floored with disgusted disbelief. Viren had ruined countless lives in his quest for power and entire kingdoms had fallen from his greed. But the atrocities of his actions hadn’t fully hit home for Callum until now; with the person he loved the most left shaking and crying in the sanctity of her own bed. 

Rayla poked her head out from Callum’s chest and looked into his eyes. “Why can’t I stop thinking about him?” she cried. Her eyes were bloodshot and scared. 

“I don’t know. But he’s gone now. He can't hurt anyone anymore. He can’t hurt _you_ anymore.”

“I know he can’t. But my brain keeps telling me he’s right around the corner, waiting to take me.”

Callum’s sympathetic sadness was replaced with anger. “Even if he was, I’d die before I let him lay another finger on you.” 

Callum was surprised by the conviction in his voice, but he agreed with it. He had already faced death for her once before, and he knew in his heart of hearts that he’d do it again without hesitation. “I’ll be here, as long as you need me.” 

Rayal didn’t respond, opting instead to bury herself into him. 

They sat together for several more minutes. Every now and again he would feel her shake with renewed sadness, and he would do his best to comfort her. 

Rayla broke the meditative silence encompassing them both. “Will I ever be able to forget about him?”

“That’s kind of hard to say,” Callum had to ponder before giving an answer. “I think, with time, he’ll fade from memory. But I don’t think he’ll ever truly leave. Bad people have a nasty tendency to stick around in the mind. Thankfully, you have people who can help you, including a totally awesome boyfriend.”

The nod of Rayla’s head told Callum that his words had gotten through. He let out a small sigh of relief, one barely perceptible but containing enough emotion to flatten a mountain. Rayla was stubborn to her core and hated accepting help from anyone; it was one of her most admirable and annoying qualities. But here she was, ready to let others provide what she herself did not have. To say a weight had lifted off of his heart was underselling it. 

“I do have one question, though,” Callum finally spoke up after he felt the moment had been processed.

Rayla gazed into his eyes, face still shining with undried tears.

“Do you mind if I get under the covers with you? We are thousands of feet up in the air, and your room doesn’t have any heating.”

Rayla, continuing her silence, simply opened up the sheets, but the knowing smile forming on her lips told Callum more than any spoken language could ever hope to convey.

Callum laid down and Rayla nestled herself into the crook of his arm, head resting on at the top of his shoulder and hand over his heart. The night was far from young and sleep was slowly encroaching on their consciousnesses. Neither said a word and simply enjoyed the others company. Callum could be feel the tension in Rayla's body diminish with each passing minute and it pleased him to know that he was able to help take away even a small part of her anxiety. Before either could drift into sleep, Rayla proposed a question of her own.

“How’d you get in here?”

“Magic.”

“Bull.”

“I’m serious. I figured out how to open locks with Aspiro.”

“How in the -”

“Okay, so if I whistle while exhaling, the wind produced by the spell vibrates with the pitch of my whistle. Then it’s just a matter of finding the right frequency that resonates with the metal tumblers. Once I’ve found it, I just need to make a condensed whirlwind to turn the lock and boom, I’m in.”

“You are such a nerd,” Rayla chuckled into his shoulder. 

Figures. She starts to feel better and immediately insults him. He’d expect nothing else from his girlfriend.

“Love you, Ray,” Callum said before lightly kissing the top of her head, right between the horns. 

“Love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much a projection piece. Something very, very, similar happened to me recently and I'm just sort of writing it out. Rayla's dialogue (concerning Viren) is pretty much 1-to-1 to things I've said to friends in the past few days.
> 
> Anyways, school has just started back up and I don't have the heart to tell one of my teaches that the only reason I'm taking her mafia-focused history class is because I want to see how well it lines up with my family's experience.


End file.
